Like Dead Things Still Breathing
by attackfishscales
Summary: In a world where Zuko was never scarred and banished, the colonial governor of Omashu waits to welcome the new Firelord to her city.


**Author's Note:** A very belated entry to Maiko Week 2015.

* * *

 **Lanterns**

Omashu glittered under the lantern light like the jewels and sequins on a theater costume, magnificent from a distance, but dingy and false up close. Mai had come to like it. There was something reassuring about how easy it was to see through the pretense. It was nothing at all like the Fire Nation capital. Even under the lantern light, the royal palanquin gleamed, but the ornamental roof cast sharp shadows, like black blades. Through the gauzy, insubstantial curtains, Mai could see _her_ , and with a shiver, Mai knew she could see Mai.

It wasn't like it actually mattered that the woman inside the palanquin could see her. She was here to see her. And it wasn't like invisibility would have saved her. Azula had never needed to see her, or touch her to hurt her.

As the palanquin drew close, Mai dropped down to her knees and put her forehead against the stone walkway. Out of the corner of her eye, the rows of people rushing to take their cue from her rolled down to the ground like an avalanche. Mai swore she could feel the weight of them bearing down on her, and the weight of Azula's detached scrutiny behind the palanquin curtains.

The palanquin's shadow dropped over her as its bearers stopped and set it down. Azula's boots rang out against the painted and gilt wood, making a hollow sound with each step downward. Even if she hadn't heard Azula's every step, even if she couldn't have seen Azula's boots in front of her, she would have known just how close Azula stood. The very air crackled with the distance between them. Mai held herself still and waited.

"Rise," Azula said only, so Mai did.

As soon as she was on her feet, she bowed low. "Firelord."

"Governor." Though Azula returned the bow, hers was much shallower. This at leas was familiar, expected, a dance of etiquette between a Firelord's daughter and a governor's daughter, now between a Firelord and a governor.

The Firelord cast a glance over her kneeling subjects. When her gaze turned to Mai, it was wry, knowing, with the faintest trace of Azula's familiar cruelty hidden at its back. "You look good, Mai. Authority suits you."

"Authority has always always suited you," Mai murmured.

"It's good to see you Mai," Azula told her with a smile, lifting her arms to signal her colonial subjects to rise as their governor had done. It didn't matter that she knew Azula's words and smiles were meaningless, and that she had left safety behind a long long time ago, even though by rights she should be more afraid now, not less, she couldn't stop the almost inaudible sigh of relief that escaped her as an attendant handed her a lantern. She also knew that there was no way Azula had missed it. And sure enough, once she had taken her own lantern and lifted it high to light her way, Azula smirked. "Walk with me," she ordered.

 **Facade**

Walking with Azula meant following her, it always had. Mai fell in a step behind her, close enough to whisper in her ear if she had wanted to. Close enough to stab her if she had dared.

But of course she didn't, and Azula knew that, which is why she let her so close.

The feeling of... She didn't even know the word for it, but it stole the breath out of her and burned away her words, the sense that nothing had changed, even though it had been years since she had seen Azula, since she had set foot in the Fire Nation, even though Azula had become Firelord, and announced it to Mai with her father's dismissal as governor, and then only after days of waiting and making half-formed survival plans, wondering what she was supposed to do if this meant Mai didn't have Firelord Azula's favor, declared Mai as his replacement. It was the crushing sense that nothing was ever going to change.

"Not that you aren't welcome," Mai began with a lie. "But why are you here?"

"For you, Mai," Azula told her. "I'm here to see an old friend."

 _Of course you are,_ Mai thought. There was pretense, and then there was this, as transparent as glass. "I can't imagine I'm worth coming all the way out to the colonies over the solstice."

"Don't underestimate yourself." Azula let her stew for several long minutes as they ascended the myriad of stairways "You heard about my brother."

It wasn't a question, and Mai didn't know how to answer. It had to sting, slipping out of his sister's hands like that. She wondered if he had gone to his uncle's rebellion or struck out on his own. More than that, she wondered, tried to stop herself from wondering, if he was happy now, if he had what he wanted, if he was free.

"How long has it been since you've seen him?" Azula asked her voice as mild as it ever got.

"He hasn't contacted me, if that's what you're asking."

"It wasn't, Mai. I trust you." Azula waited for Mai to take the last step and meet her on the palace walk. "I know how loyal you are."

Catching up with her, Mai inclined her head.

"Speaking of brothers, how's yours?"

Mai didn't flinch. "He wrote me last month to say he was promoted to lieutenant."

"I'm sure he'll go far."

 _If you allow him to,_ Mai didn't say.

"Family is so important," Azula murmured, far away. Then, abruptly, she turned her intense, burning focus back to Mai. "I'm afraid as of tomorrow morning, you will no longer be governor of Omashu." She gave Mai a brief, level look, but she started talking again before Mai had time to react, which she supposed was Azula's way of showing mercy. "I need you too much. Your father can be governor again, I don't care. I need you to hunt down my brother, bring him back to me."

 **Disclosure**

"I am honored," she said doubtfully.

Azula's lips twisted up into a smirk for just an instant. Then, she pulled them down, expression grave. "I need someone I can trust."

"You have plenty of people who are loyal to you, Firelord Azula, some of whom are much better at tracking people than I am." She kept her voice level, somehow. Being near Azula, it was familiar. The fear was familiar, and she pushed against it like she was picking at a scab.

Azula favored her with a tight smile. It wasn't even a warning smile. She was just... Amused. But the smile disappeared just as the smirk had. "And if I wanted him dead, I would go to one of them."

"I'm sure you could find a way to impress upon them your desires," Mai said dryly. "If you want the satisfaction of your traitor brother's death yourself, I'm sure they would understand."

Azula's expression didn't change, but all at once her eyes burned with a dangerous new light and Mai couldn't help it, she backed up a step and had to catch herself before she fell down the steps. Then, Azula smiled a terrifying ghastly smile, and Mai wondered if she was about to die. "No Mai," she said instead. "I need someone who understands the importance of family."

 _You killed your father,_ Mai absolutely did not say. _And everybody knows it._

If Azula knew what Mai was thinking, she gave no sign as she continued, "I doubt you'll have to look very hard for Zuzu. Once he finds out you're looking for him, he'll come to you."

"I'm sure," Mai said without inflection. She wished she could pretend she thought Azula was wrong. In the darkness and lantern light, with Azula's baleful shadow, it was hard not to feel the phantom pressure of his lips against hers. It was hard not to see his shadow in her doorway, with the moonlight in his eyes.

"I need someone who can keep him." Azula shot her a sly look. "Someone who can remind him where his true loyalties lie."

Mai supposed it had always been too much to hope for that Azula didn't know, but it still burned, that the sneaking, and the slipping away, the polite words and empty looks in public, had all been for nothing. They had gotten away with it because Azula let them. That was the worst part, really, because back then, keeping those stolen moments for themselves, out of Azula's sight, had felt like freedom.

"He isn't really a traitor, Mai," Azula said, breaking her reverie. "He hasn't done anything wrong yet. I need to stop him before he does, or I won't be able to protect him."

Yes, because protecting Zuko had always been Azula's first priority. "You'll want an heir, of course." _You want your toys back,_ Mai didn't say.

"Yes, Mai," Azula replied, voice harsh dispite how quietly she spoke. "I need an heir. Now bring my brother back to me."

 **Ghosts**

When Mai didn't reply Azula sighed. "I'll leave you alone to think about it. I suppose you're going to spend tonight making some sort of hideously old fashioned Solstice vigil instead of celebrating like a normal person."

"Where would I be if I were normal?" Mai asked her.

Azula chuckled as she walked away, but the tight feeling in Mai's chest didn't ease at all. With the Firelord gone, the people who had come to greet her milled around below, dispersing to a thousand solstice parties already springing up throughout Omashu. If Mai had any mercy left in her at all, she would have followed Azula, or hosted the party in the Governor's palace herself instead of leaving it to her mother. Instead, she walked through a side door and dismissed the guards who tried to fall in behind her. She held the lantern high. By tradition, all other lights had been extinguished, and she needed it to find her way through the corridors and into her private family apartments and her family shrine fire.

The guards at the doors to her apartments bowed to her, and she nodded back stiffly before stepping through. The apartments were empty. Her parents were entertaining Azula, and her brother was safely out at sea. This was, if anywhere, where she should have been able to relax.

She couldn't of course. That would have been too easy. With a sigh, she stepped into the shrine and the family fire, painstakingly moved from the house in the Caldera in a lantern like the one she was holding and then rekindled here. It was said that if a family flame ever want out, the family would be dead by the next winter solstice, and if the royal fire died, the Fire Nation itself would fall. There was a hidden fire somewhere in the middle of nowhere tended day and night by Fire Sages that if it ever went out, the sun itself would stop rising. Mai had accidentally put the family fire out fifteen years ago. Her mother had screamed at her for days, but two months later, her father had been named governor of Omashu, and here they all were.

Mai set her lantern down on the floor, knelt down, and bowed her head. There was a part of her, that grew larger during festivals, that wished she really were as pious as she appeared, and that she really was able to take comfort in ritual, instead of simply being desperate for solitude. Bowing her head and listening to the fire did nothing for her except give her an alibi. She closed her eyes and imagined falling asleep here, knocking over the lantern, and burning alive.

Her eyes flew open. Later, she wouldn't have been able to say how she knew, since she hadn't heard the door open. It was just the sense of another human breathing with her, another shadow tucked away in the corner. _There was someone else in the room with her._

 **Reunion**

He wore his hair in an Earth Kingdom bun, and in the firelight, she could only just make out the muddy brown-green of his robe. He carried swords on his back, and Mai was certain it was swords and not a sword, even though she only saw one hilt. Other than the swords there was nothing about him that was remarkable, other than the swords, and his bright gold Fire Nation eyes. "Hi Mai," he whispered.

She rose, unhurried, like she hadn't just been badly startled, and circled around him slowly. "Your sister's looking for you."

"I'm not surprised."

" _I'm_ surprised," she retorted. "You never struck me as completely out of your mind before."

"Just mostly," he said, sounding like he wanted to laugh.

"She's here, Zuko."

"I know." He swallowed. "I followed her here."

"Completely out of your mind." Mai didn't bother shaking her head.

He closed his eyes and opened them again with a faint tremor. "I needed to see you."

She ignored that as much as she as able. "Did you join your uncle's rebellion?"

He rolled his eyes and didn't answer. She used to think about those eyes a lot at court, quiet solemn eyes, as he kept to his sister's shadow, the oldest born prince, with no chance at the throne. His eyes weren't quiet now. He didn't seem so... muted.

"Your sister told me you would come to me. And that when you did..."

"What did she promise you?" he asked softly. "In exchange?"

"You." Mai stared at the fire. "And that our child would be Firelord after her."

"You know you can't trust a word she says-"

She cut him off. "I'm not stupid, Zuko."

"I won't go back," he hissed. "I won't live like that ever again."

"Is this where you ask me to run away with you and I tell you I can't?"

He was quiet for a moment. "Do you want me to ask?"

He said he was never going back, but it felt... Just then it felt like they already were back, or back in time, just him and her in the dark, with their masks off. "No, I don't want you to ask me that."

 _How are you doing?_ she wanted to ask, or maybe, _Are you okay? What's it like on your own? Are your uncle and the rebels treating you right_? What she settled for was, "Do you really think you have a chance at winning?"

He grinned, and Mai's heart stuttered to a stop. The Zuko she knew never grinned. "Yeah, I do."

"I guess that makes you a full blown traitor no, no matter what your sister thinks."

Zuko huffed. "I don't think I'm actually betraying anything. Everything I ever actually cared about, I'm finally fighting for now."

Mai wished he was lying, or that she could pretend he was lying. "Do you care about me?"

He reached up to touch her, then stopped jerking his hand back. Mai caught it with a kiss.

 **Ignite**

Zuko sucked in a breath. "Mai..."

"I'm pretty sure I care about you."

"I... I love you Mai," he stammered desperately. "This has nothing to do with that."

"Then why are you here?" she snapped.

He shrugged, and the motion was so familiar and make him look so young, like they were both twenty-two again, and she had been sent back to court to represent her family and kiss the Firelord's son in secluded hallways. "I just wanted to see you."

"Then I don't understand how it can have nothing to do with me."

"That isn't what I-"

"Shut up," she ordered him. Her hand gripped his tight, too tight, the skin turning white where her fingers pressed down. She pulled him to her until their faces almost touched, and rhe air between her body and his simmered like lightning leaping from the sky to the ground. She rushed forward until their lips colided. He opened his mouth and let her tongue slide in, and all Mai wanted to do was stand there forever like that, kissing him and breathing in the scent of his skin.

"Mai..." breathed Zuko when the kiss ended.

"You're an idiot, and I hate you," she told him before kissing him again.

They broke apart again and he smiled at her. "Yeah, I know."

"You're so completely stupid and I love you," she tried again. This time it sounded right. She buried her head in his neck and tried to pretend nothing else existed.

"Yeah, I know that too," he said, and she could feel his words and their trace of laughter rumbling through the skin of his throat.

"Come to bed with me." She lifted her head up and stared him straight in the eye. "Keep me awake tonight. I'll sneak back in here tomorrow morning before they come back from the party. Stay with me."

"For tonight," he said slowly.

"For tonight."

He took her hand and let her lead him out of the shrine and through the old royal apartments, to the room the old kings of Omashu had slept in, and let her push him down onto the bed and unwind his hair tie. He let her unclasp his robe and slide it off his shoulders, and peel off his under-tunic, trailing a line of kisses down his chest. She let him slip his hand under her own robe and push and pull it off. She let the man who mighr someday become Firelord into the bed of the old Omashu kings, into her bed, and let his fingers play against her bare skin. He let her wrap her legs around him, and together, they let the hours drift into nothingness, until the twilight had faded away, and the lanterns outside the window mirrored the stars above them.

"This is where I ask you to run away with me," Zuko whispered in her ear, and the sound of Mai's laughter was a dull, empty, tired thing, far too close to tears.

 **Autumn**

"I don't remember you being cruel."

Zuko flinched, but he rallied, brushing her hair out of her face with one hand. "We know where your brother is. We can keep him safe."

"And my parents?" She wanted to hate him so much. She wanted to and didn't.

"I'm sure they have more than a dozen different plans in case things go bad."

Which wasn't the point, Mai could have told him, except that it was.

"You don't have to stay here." He threw it to her like a lifeline. "You don't."

 _Yes I do._ It was on the tip of her tongue.

"You don't have to stay," he repeated, voice so frighteningly sure.

There was a stickiness on her thighs and inside of her that brought to mind each of the five times already that she had taken herbs that scorched her insides and snuffed out the life growing within her to keep Azula from getting her perfect heir for her to twist and kill in ten thousand other ways. She would do it again, if she had to.

Zuko's fingers in her hair, the soft tug and slip as they glided through, felt so good, so much like home. She let out a long shaky breath and wished that he would just go, that he would get his fill of holding her and leave, because that way she would know that he knew what choice she would have made if he had let her. She wished he would just go and make that choice for her, because she had no idea what to choose.

"Do you really think you have any chance against Azula?" she accused. The world was lost, she knew she was really saying, and they couldn't even save themselves.

His fingers untangled themselves from her hair as he sat up, leaning against the wall. "Things are changing."

"I'm sure."

"I..." He turned to the window. "I can't tell you how, not unless you come with me, but things are really changing, I swear. We have a real chance to do something good."

Maybe somewhere in the world there were people who knew how to cry when they needed to. Mai just went numb instead. "You're going to die."

There were a lot of things he could have said to that, assurances, or flippant retorts, but instead, he gave a small huff of laughter. When he did speak, she could hear the hint of a smile in his voice. "That would be one way to thwart Azula."

Mai couldn't help it, she laughed, or at least wheezed and managed not to cry. "Freedom suits you," she told him once she collected herself.

"It suits everyone Mai." He gave her a strange sad look.

Mai pulled the blankets around them both and faced the window. Winter didn't begin until sunrise, but that didn't stop the cold from seeping in, and all she wanted to do was lie there with him until the moon sank lower in the sky.


End file.
